page_title: M2 Browning
section_title: Deployment
hierarchical_section_title: M2 Browning / Deployment
caption_attribution_description: English: Central Command Area of Responsibility – A Naval Special Warfare combatant-craft crewman fires his 50 caliber machine gun from a Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) while operating at a forward location. A RHIB is a high-speed, high- buoyancy, extreme-weather craft assigned the primary mission of ship-to-shore insertion/extraction of SEAL tactical elements. The RHIB is equipped with 50 caliber machine guns and supports Naval Special Warfare Operations.
context_page_description: The M2 machine gun or Browning .50 caliber machine gun is a heavy machine gun designed toward the end of World War I by John Browning. Its design is similar to Browning's earlier M1919 Browning machine gun, which was chambered for the .30-06 cartridge. The M2 uses the much larger and much more powerful .50 BMG cartridge, which was developed alongside and takes its name from the gun itself. It has been referred to as "Ma Deuce", in reference to its M2 nomenclature. The design has had many specific designations; the official US military designation for the current infantry type is Browning Machine Gun, Cal. 50, M2, HB, Flexible. It is effective against infantry, unarmored or lightly armored vehicles and boats, light fortifications, and low-flying aircraft.
  The Browning .50 caliber machine gun has been used extensively as a vehicle weapon and for aircraft armament by the United States from the 1930s to the present. It was heavily used during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the Soviet–Afghan War, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan in the 2000s and 2010s.
context_section_description: The M2 .50 Browning machine gun has been used for various roles:
  A medium infantry support weapon
  As a light anti-aircraft (AA) gun in some ships; up to six M2 guns could be mounted on the same turret.
  As an anti-aircraft gun on the ground. The original water-cooled version of the M2 was used on a tall AA tripod or vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft weapon on a sturdy pedestal mount. In later variants, twin and quadruple M2HB Brownings were used, such as the M45 Quadmount (aka "meat chopper") used on the US M16 half-track carrier. Twin or quad-mount .50 M2 guns normally used alternating left-hand and right-hand feed.
  Primary or secondary weapon on an armored fighting vehicle.
  Primary or secondary weapon on a naval patrol boat.
  Spotting for the primary weapon on some armored fighting vehicles.
  Secondary weapon for anti-boat defense on large naval vessels (corvettes, frigates, destroyers, cruisers, etc.).
  Coaxial gun or independent mounting in some tanks.
  Fixed-mounted forward-firing primary aircraft armament (AN/M2 and AN/M3 light-barrel versions only). The AN/M2 was used as primary armament in almost all World War II U.S. pursuit aircraft (such as the North American P-51 Mustang, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, Lockheed P-38 Lightning, Bell P-39 Airacobra, Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, Grumman F6F Hellcat, and Vought F4U Corsair). It was also used in fixed mountings in bombers and ground attack aircraft like the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber, Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber, and medium bombers such as North American B-25 Mitchell, Martin B-26 Marauder, and Douglas A-26 Invader; usually 4–8 per aircraft but the bombers could mount 12 or more in certain configurations. The later, faster-firing electrically feed-boosted AN/M3 was used in many Korean War-era U.S.A.F. fighter aircraft such as the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, Republic F-84 Thunderjet, North American F-86 Sabre, and early versions of the Martin B-57 Canberra bomber. The US Navy had largely completed their move to the (unrelated) M2/AN 20mm autocannon for aircraft armament by this time.
  Turret-mount or flexible-mounted defensive armament, again only with the AN/M2 light-barrel version, in almost all US World War II-era bombers and patrol aircraft such as the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator and Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers, North American B-25 Mitchell and Marin B-26 Marauder medium bombers, Consolidated PBY Catalina patrol flying boats, Goodyear “K”and “M” type airships, Grumman TBF/TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, and in a combined offensive/defensive turret mounting in many Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighters. The AN/M3 was used as a flexible, quad-mounted, radar-directed tail-defence gun as late as 1980 on the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, until replaced by 20mm M61 Vulcan Gatling-type cannon on the H model.
  Variants of the AN/M3 are used as flexible door guns or as flexible remotely-controlled armament subsystems on many US Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard helicopters, such as the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk and variants, Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion, Bell OH-58 Kiowa, and others.
caption: An M2 fired from a rigid-hulled inflatable boat.
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